This next piece is an article I did on Philosophy in the Censorship of Fine Arts.
It's quite long and in depth, so be prepared for big words and complex ideas.
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“Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.” This is a quote from Arnold Bennett, the famous British novelist. This is a very powerful phrase in that, if everyone believed it, would settle a lot of the arguments of today. Essentially, Bennett is saying that nothing will seem immoral or disrespectful to you as long as you are open to it. This is quite obvious, but then he also says that you are the only one who can open yourself up to anything. As long as you are opposed to something, you will not like it until you decide you want to like it. A simple enough concept, but then this is where the stubborn ignorance of today’s society steps in. Usually, when people believe in something, they tend to fight for it. And this is where it all falls down. How are people supposed to change themselves when they are not willing to change? You may say, “Well, they don’t need to change who they are.” However, that is not the point of this argument. It is the fact that people who believe in something often refuse to see it from the opposite side, to open themselves to the view of the opponent and ask why they are fighting for what they believe in.
Now, some may wonder where this is going. Well, we speak of ignorance and refusal to put yourself into another person’s shoes. What better idea to apply this to than the censorship of fine arts? For, you see, there have been heaps of controversy over seemingly “good” artwork. From Michelangelo’s “David” to the “Sensation” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, people always seem to have something against the arts. Sometimes there is good reason behind the opposition of artwork, but usually there isn’t.
As far as morals go, there is no justifiable motive behind the censoring of artwork. To prove this, there are a series of examples and rebuts that summarize the issue and put it into perspective. This also includes some opinions from the opposite point of view and rebuttals against them. But to start, the definition of the thesis needs refining. The thesis does not mean that there is no reasoning behind the banning of controversial art, merely that the only motive is religious belief, which cannot be used as an argument for not everyone believes in it. All that is being said is that artwork should not be grounded by a belief system that not everyone follows.
First, to go over some of the arguments against the censoring of the arts. There’s the most obvious one, the right of free speech and self-expression. It’s the idea that everyone has their own say and that they are allowed to express themselves in any way they desire. Art can be seen as a form of self-expression, especially the controversial works. People pour their emotions and thoughts into their work. Consider the works of Frida Kahlo. Kahlo suffered polio at age six in 1913 and was in a car accident in 1925. She lost much of the sensation in her legs and was in and out of the hospital for the rest of her life. This constant pain she showed through her artwork: mostly self-portraits, but with odd twists such as open wounds and medical devices ingeniously planted in them. This was Frida’s form of self-expression, and is still used as such by many artists today.
What this is getting at is that you cannot reject self-expression, just because you think it wrong. People have the right to self-expression, do they not? People have the right to pray, why can they not have the right to exhibit their emotions? Both convey feelings and ideas, no? And yet Catholics condemn museums because they are opposed to the artwork, while artists do not condemn the Church because they are opposed to the prayer.
On another note, sexuality is often censored in artwork. Pictures of n***s, whether indulging in sexual activities or not, are routinely censored. homosexuality in artwork is the most controversial. From the 1930’s through to the 1960’s, homosexuality in art and literature was strictly prohibited. Why did people want to condemn something as natural as sex? Why was it that love could not be expressed for thirty years? Gershon Legman once said “Murder is a crime. Describing murder is not. Sex is not a crime. Describing sex is.”
Another argument against censorship is that the people condemning the works often never see the art for what it is. Some people refuse to believe that art is a form of expression, and only see it as an attack on society. When Steven C. Dubin wrote an article on the “Sensation” exhibit at Brooklyn Museum, he wrote:
Without having seen the show, the Catholic League and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani condemned [the exhibit] as "sick stuff," "blasphemous" and unsuitable for display in a venue like the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which is partially funded by taxpayers' dollars.
It would seem that these people opposing the Brooklyn Museum’s new exhibit, “Sensation”, cannot possibly have had any reason behind their argument against the collection, for they had never seen the exhibit before. In fact, the protestors were fighting the exhibit before it even opened! What ideas could they have possibly conceived in order to be opposed to the show? How can you be opposed to something that, as far as you know, doesn’t even exist?
It would seem that the censoring of art has been steadily getting more and more outrageous. Consider the Young People’s Art Exhibition. In 2005 one entry was removed for controversial topics. In 2006, ten were removed. One of them was a piece by a student named Addie Green entitled “Dismantled Stereotype”. It featured a stereotypical image of a high-school jock in a sports jacket standing in front of a pick-up truck. On the bumper of the pick-up truck was the reason for the piece being removed: a foot-ball shaped bumper sticker in the colours of the rainbow. It was meant as an experiment to see if anyone would notice the object which tears apart the stereotype, but the artwork was removed for being a “… reference to a gay issue.”
What purpose do people have for censoring artwork when what they are censoring it for is merely implied? What moral could you possibly be fulfilling by removing artwork for merely containing a rainbow sticker? The ethical reasoning seems almost non-existent. Soon enough we get to a point where artwork is condemned for any hidden issues embedded in the paint. When a portrait of a tree is removed from a gallery for possessing the curves of a woman, you know something is wrong.
But there are also arguments for censorship. One of the main ones is religion. Moral standards often play a huge role in the censoring of arts. Some people believe that some of the concepts or ideas portrayed by artwork are “evil” or unsuitable for public display. These are often very religious people and they usually protest against works that include nudity, sexuality, explicit language, drugs, alcohol, tobacco use, homosexuality or anything else that their religion says is wrong.
Often the rebuttal for this argument is that they have their views, and other people have theirs. One group of people can’t condemn the work of another just because they think it is morally wrong. As was the idea put forward earlier, the religious community can argue against artwork as much as artists can argue against prayer, for both show expression and both can be controversial to the other group.
Another argument for censorship is that people don’t want their children exposed to the topics shown in some of this artwork. We all remember Reverend Lovejoy’s wife from “The Simpsons”: “Won’t someone please think of the children?!” Often parents deem it immoral for their children to be exposed to sexuality and other controversial topics. Some children are excused from sex-education because their parents don’t want them exposed to the “smut”.
The only thing wrong with this is that the themes portrayed in the art are entirely unavoidable. These parents shield their children from the topics that they will have to learn about at some time or another. Why protect children from artwork that contains concepts they will have to learn about eventually anyways?
Finally, we get to the argument that sometimes contact with controversial artwork is unavoidable. An article by Jonathan Padget in the Washington Post deals with a story like this. Eleven Eleven Sculpture Space in downtown Washington is the home of the “Not the Knitting You Know” exhibit, featuring large, nude, crocheted people made by artist Ming-Yi Sung. But the gallery is also the lobby of the fourteen-story office building leased by the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
Anyone can go [see] the gallery's exhibits, but the most frequent visitors are the law firm employees who traipse through the lobby every day. The firm objected to Sung's work and complained to building management the day the exhibition opened. Shorenstein Realty Services then contacted Binnie Fry, Eleven Eleven's manager and curator, and told her to remove the exhibit.
Here we see an example of a situation in which seeing the works is unavoidable. The most pragmatic and practical thing to do with the art would be to censor the artwork, which Sung did. In a case like this it really comes down to who is the bigger person. The artist can censor their own work, or the viewer can choose to accept it. Which then returns us to the idea stated earlier, that people will accept something only if they choose to accept it.
In the end it all comes down to your personal beliefs and morals. You can enjoy art for what it represents or condemn it for what you think it represents. The artwork is the same whether you see it as inspiring or disturbing, and chances are that the artist never intended to make something controversial. It’s like the debate of Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings of flowers. Are they just flowers, or do they represent parts of the female anatomy? Overall it comes down to the person viewing the picture to decide.
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This is a finished work, but any feedback is still appreciated.
